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 | ""Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb.
"Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the
truth." | |
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Alfred North Whitehead
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| "A guilty conscience is the mother of invention." | |
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Carolyn Wells
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| "And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the mother of
invention." | |
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Aristotle
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| "Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else
does and thinking something different." | |
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Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
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| "Getting caught is the mother of invention." | |
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Robert Byrne
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| "Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the
cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the
trail but when I look at the subsequent developments I feel the credit is
due to others rather than to myself." | |
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Alexander Graham Bell
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| "I invent nothing, I rediscover." | |
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Auguste Rodin
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| "I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I"ve
invented." | |
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R. Buckminster Fuller
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| "Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains
you use, the less material you need." | |
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Charles Franklin Kettering
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| "Invention is the mother of necessity." | |
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Thorstein Veblen
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| "Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination
of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the
memory. Nothing can be made of nothing; he who has laid up no materials
can produce no combinations." | |
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Sir Joshua Reynolds
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| "INVENTOR, n. A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels,
levers, and springs, and believes it civilization." | |
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Ambrose Gwinett Bierce
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| "Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels,
levers and springs, and believes it civilization." | |
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Ambrose Bierce
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| "Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new
machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in
iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the
world." | |
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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| "Necessity, mother of invention." | |
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William Wycherley
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| "Necessity, the mother of invention." | |
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George Farquhar
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| "Necessity, who is the mother of invention." | |
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Plato
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| "None of my inventions came by accident?they came by work." | |
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Thomas Alva Edison
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| "Our ability to create has outreached our ability to use wisely the
products of our invention." | |
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Whitney M. Young, Jr.
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| "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our
attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an
unimproved end." | |
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Henry David Thoreau
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| "The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a
century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt." | |
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Henry George
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| "The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our
wits to grow sharper." | |
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Eden Phillpotts
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| "The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits
to grow sharper" | |
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Bertrand Arthur William Russel
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| "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to
conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the
introduction of a new order of things." | |
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Niccoló Machiavelli
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| "Thomas Edison devoted ten years and all of his money to developing
the nickel alkaline storage battery at a time when he was almost
penniless. Through that period of time, his record and film production
company was supporting the storage battery effort. Then one night the
terrifying cry of "Fire!" echoed through the film plant. Spontaneous
combustion had ignited some chemicals. Within moments all of the packaging
compounds, celluloid for records, film, and other flammable goods had gone
up in flames. Fire companies from eight towns arrived, but the heat was so
intense and the water pressure so low that the fire hoses had no effect.
Edison was sixty-seven years old - no age to begin anew. His daughter was
frantic, wondering if he was safe, if his spirit was broken, how he would
handle such a crisis at his age. She saw him running toward her. He spoke
first. He said, "Where"s your mother? Go get her. Tell her to get her
friends. They"ll never see another fire like this as long as they live."
At five-thirty the next morning, with the fire barely under control, he
called his employees together and announced, "We"re rebuilding." One man
was told to lease all the machine shops in the area, another to obtain a
wrecking crane from the Erie Railroad Company. Then, almost as an
afterthought, Edison added, "Oh, by the way. Anybody know where we can get
some money?" Virtually everything we now recognize as a Thomas Edison
contribution to our lives came after that great disaster." | |
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Jeffrey R. Holland
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| "We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still
claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the
first thing we had ever invented ? human liberty." | |
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Mark Twain
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| "We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is
inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their
birth as toys." | |
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Eric Hoffer
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| "What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions." | |
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Arnold H. Glasow
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